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Electronic Arts has confirmed that it will be closing its
North West Studio in Warrington as part of a creative
decision to consolidate UK studios and create stronger
development teams.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, communications boss
Tiffany Steckler explained, "The UK Studio has decided to
reinforce its development base by bringing the creative teams
from disparate locations into one place."

"The idea is to have those people who are working in the
North West Studio in Warrington closer geographically to
Guildford and Chertsey, to help build a more cohesive entity,
to have better synergy across teams, better career
opportunities and better sharing of tools and libraries," she
added.

Steckler also confirmed that staff in Warrington, amounting
to around 50 employees, will all be offered positions within
the company at either Guildford or Surrey studios.

"Everybody in the Warrington Studio is entitled to a job in
either Chertsey or Guildford, some may have personal reasons
for which they can't relocate, but it's very much our
intention and our aim to have everybody's job intact,"
explained Steckler.

"It's not a job-cutting exercise by any stretch of the
imagination. The studio didn't close yesterday, there's a
process now for the next couple of weeks and months for us to
see who can relocate and see where we go from there."

Work undertaken at the North West Studio will also be taken
south, as the firm aims to establish a more solid UK
development team.

"It's very much a creative decision," said Steckler. "It's
not about cutting costs or closing down a studio, it's really
in order to help the UK studio grow in scale from one
location and get an improved focus on game development."

"If we're all together, it's easier to grow in scale and get
a better focus on new IP that's under development, looking at
sharing expertise and technologies across teams —
that's very much the philosophy behind it."

Steckler also denied that there are any more plans afoot to
close or consolidate other EA studios within Europe, stating,
"This is not an EA trend, it's not about EA trending towards
consolidation, absolutely not. It's simply for the UK, inside
of one country, to bring a more cohesive whole to the
region."